The Heartless Dragon
by Missie2
Summary: Based on a German folktale, this story sees the king's naive young son set a dragon without a heart back into the world, and then set off on a quest to find out what happened to the heart... 34 shounen ai.
1. Default Chapter

**_The Heartless Dragon_**

****

Man, it's been a while since I wrote anything for the Gundam Wing fandom, but I really like this idea. As usual, I don't own Gundam Wing or any of the characters, or the folktale that this is based on. I do own a rather impressive collection of handbags though. Shounen ai 3x4.

Part 1.

Once upon a time, there was a dragon and a king. Well, not together, of course. That would be dreadfully strange. They did exist at roughly the same time, and rather near each other. But they were quite separate entities who happened to clash over a number of issues. As it happens, the dragon had less to do with the king and more to do with the king's son.

Dragons are, by all accounts, fairly pleasant creatures. Most are wise, chivalrous and downright friendly. That is, unless the dragon is devoid of a heart. The dragon of this tale was one of those unfortunate individuals. He was a handsome dragon, with flame red scales speckled with dots of ebony black. He lived high on the top of a mountain peak covered by clouds, a peaceful place that allowed him space to ponder profound things. It was at this mountain summit that the dragon lost his heart, in circumstances that were never quite explained to anyone. Whatever those circumstances were, the result was that the dragon became miserable and morose. The space in his chest meant to hold his heart held instead a hive of wasps, which buzzed and stung him without mercy and made him very short-tempered indeed. He was forced off of his mountain and into a kingdom several thousand miles away, where he built a giant house for himself on the outskirts of the city.

Now, although the people of this particular kingdom were quite amiable, they still managed to irritate the bad-tempered dragon, and he responded by flashing his sharp claws and whipping his large tail. Some even irritated him to a point whereby he used his massive teeth. The dragon was possessed of a small amount of magic, only enough to turn a single person into a block of stone. He often used it on the local farmers, just to get them to shut the hell up. How dare they wake him up at four in the morning with their incessant jabbering about what liquids worked best at warming cow's teats!

There was only so much of this behaviour that the locals could take, and so this is where the king comes in. He was a good man, wise and clement, with a lovely wife and three sons. He was fair to the middle classes, just to the nobles and generous to the poor, all of which made him and his young family rather popular. So it was that upon hearing of the heartless dragon's shenanigans, he became very distressed. He was unfortunate enough to have had a lot on his plate at the time of the disturbance. His beloved wife had taken ill after giving birth to their youngest son, the baby himself was devoid of a carer other than a quite dotty old lady, the oldest son had fallen in love with some uninterested peasant girl and was threatening to throw himself into the moat and his second son seemed quite keen on starting a war with the neighbouring kingdom over some stolen toy soldiers. Under most circumstances, the king would have tried to bargain with the dragon, or at least offered a virgin sacrifice (killing two birds with one stone as he would have sacrificed that peasant girl his son was besotted with.) But with such worries plaguing his mind, he did something completely out of character.

He tricked the dragon.

Yes, that's right. He tricked the dragon. It wasn't even a very good trick, which may be the reason the dragon fell for it. The king promised his reptilian nemesis a cellar full of beef and shoved him down the stairs, locking the door afterwards. The room was reinforced with iron walls and the door locked with a steel padlock. The dragon roared and bellowed and used terrible swear words, but to no avail. The only opening in the room was a tiny chink that peeked out into the music room, which nobody ever used. So it was that the dragon remained in that cellar for years, until he could find a way out.

But this story is not about the dragon's capture, oh no. It's about his escape and the aftermath, and to tell this part of the story another introduction must be made.

The king's youngest son was named Quatre, and for all the joy that followed his christening what happened afterwards was rather strange. The queen came down with a terrible fever in the days following the birth and was unable to nurse her child. The king was so terribly preoccupied with the dragon affair that he quite forgot about the baby. And the two older boys were teenagers, who can really only afford to think about themselves. The servants all had their jobs to do, and so the only person that Quatre had any contact with for several years was an old woman named Bella, his nursemaid. Poor Bella was old and her wits had quite departed, but she loved her little charge deeply and that was the most important thing. However, old Bella was no teacher, nor was she a preacher. All she knew were her old stories of good and virtuous behaviour rewarded, which she related to the prince all day and all night. By the time Quatre reached an age whereby most of his peers were in school, he still had only Bella and her stories.

It is a known fact about fairy tales that although the heroes and heroines are good and virtuous, common sense rarely features highly. In fact, it often seems that the sensible characters are portrayed as vile, backstabbing villains. This bears no resemblance to real life, of course, but this being Quatre's only knowledge of the ways of life he took it all very seriously. The young prince grew up with a complete lack of common sense. To Quatre, life was all rather simple. Good manners and grace could defeat any villain, every good deed reaped a reward in the nick of time and no creature was truly bad, provided they had a heart.

When Quatre turned seven, his father finally put all the stress of his short reign behind him and remembered he had three sons, not two. The king's response to his absent-minded neglect was to spoil the child rotten. Luckily for him, and for the rest of the kingdom for that matter, the prince's mind was so full of Bella's moral tales that he proved impossible to spoil entirely. He could have become selfish, cruel, spiteful or any other number of unpleasant things. Instead, he was kind, mild mannered, cheerful and incredibly, incredibly naïve.

Now, when I say naïve I mean naïve. You could tell the poor child anything and he would believe you. You could tell him that his mother really didn't like those priceless sapphires she kept on her nightstand (as his older brother once did) and wanted to give them to that Duchess she hated, and Quatre would hand them over as soon as he came across said duchess. You could tell him that the angry letter the king had written to that neighbouring king when blinding drunk was mislaid before it could be posted, and the prince would hand it to the courier and ask politely for it to be delivered. He was subject to every hoax, every trick, every prank that went on in the palace, and the word soon spread that if you needed to get back at someone, the prince was the perfect patsy. Poor Quatre was always in trouble over something, but didn't seem to care. He was only doing what other people told him, how was he to know they were liars? For naïveté is not stupidity, and Quatre was smart enough to know that pleading ignorance is often one's best defence, and that if you appear stupid you can remain blameless. In most situations, the king simply sighed at his son's lack of wits, sent him to bed without supper, then later changed his mind and had supper sent up. Such was the boy's life until he turned ten.

To avoid being suckered into any more of his brother's distraction pranks (the idea being that when said brother did something stupid, he could convince his younger brother to do something even worse to distract their parents) Quatre took to spending his time in the previously unoccupied music room, teaching himself to play the violin. For a long time, the screeching wail of the little used instrument drowned out any noise that could have filtered in. Finally, the element of raw skill that he possessed was refined and the violin produced sweet melodies instead of shrill shrieks. And with this introduction of proper music, the prince was able to hear a gruff voice trickle in from the next room.

"Thank God! If I had ears, they'd be bleeding! Get yourself a teacher, brat!"

Quatre blinked in confusion. The room next door was the abandoned cellar, which was abandoned because of a structural problem in the roof (or so he'd been told.) He walked over to the chink in the wall and called to the person inside.

"You shouldn't be in there! There's a problem with the roof, it could collapse on you!"

"What the hell are you talking about, brat? Who told you there was something wrong with the roof?"

"My father."

"Who's your father?"

"The king."

"That explains it. It figures he'd put me in a room with a bad roof, the bastard."

Quatre was very confused now. Why would his father put anyone in a room with a bad roof?

"Why are you in there?" he asked.

"Oh, I don't know. Stealing a few sheep, knocking over a few houses, singing too loudly in the shower, it could be anything. Why don't you ask your father? Personally, I think it's blatant prejudice against dragons."

"Dragons? Are you a dragon?"

"Of course I am, brat! Didn't you know your father was keeping a dragon captive in the cellar?"

"No."

"Surely you've heard someone talking about me?"

"I thought I heard someone mention a dragon once, but he had a speech impediment. He meant to say tarragon."

"Tarragon? How stupid are you?"

"Very stupid. Everyone knows that."

"Oh…" The dragon didn't quite know how to respond to that. Of course, Quatre wasn't stupid, but his mother had told him he was once and who was he to contradict the woman who nearly died giving birth to him?

"So you're a dragon," the prince piped up, "Why did my father have to lock you up?"

"Oh, I did lots of terrible things. I don't have a heart, you see."

Now that idea was utterly preposterous to Quatre. One of the stories that mad Bella had drummed into his head with the most ardent zeal was a story about a soldier who travelled around the country with Saint Peter. There was a moment in the story in which the pair had a lamb to roast over a spit. Saint Peter told the soldier he could eat as much as he wanted, but he was to leave the heart for the Saint. Of course, the soldier ate the heart as soon as the Saint's back was turned, and when Peter returned he could not find a heart. When he asked the soldier about the heart, the soldier responded by saying that the lamb had no heart. Saint Peter knew the soldier had lied, for no creature is born without a heart. They parted ways, and sooner or later the soldier found himself in trouble. Saint Peter turned up to lend a hand, but first the soldier had to admit that he had lied. So you see, the idea that a creature had no heart was impossible for the prince to comprehend, no matter how naïve he was.

"What happened to your heart?" he asked curiously.

"Never you mind, brat! The point is that I'm stuck in here because my bloody heart's gone!"

"That's terrible," Quatre sympathised, "Can't you get it back?"

"How can I get it back when I'm locked up here? How stupid are you?"

"Very stupid. I told you earlier, remember?"

"Oh, yes." A plan began to form in the dragon's mind. He could use the boy's stupidity to his benefit. His voice took on a badly-acted mournful tone. "Oh, if only I could get out of this cellar, I could find my heart and become a good dragon again."

"I'll let you out if you like."

The dragon blinked. He hadn't expected his plan to work _that _quickly.

"Oh, that would be wonderful!" he simpered.

"I'll just go ask my Dad for the keys."

_"NO!"_

"What? Why?"

"You can't tell your father you're letting me out!"

"Why?"

Time was ticking by, and the dragon felt little beads of sweat collect under his neck. He picked the most ridiculous, most unlikely excuse his brain could come up with.

"It's… a surprise!"

"A surprise? Oh, good. I like surprises."

The real surprise was that the prince actually believed the dragon's pathetic excuse. The dragon would have hopped up and down in an uncharacteristic display of glee if the ceiling hadn't been so low.

"Right. Well, go to your father's room and find the key to the cellar, then come down here and let me out. And make sure nobody sees you!"

"Okay!" The dragon heard the faint sounds of the prince's feet skipping away. His many teeth glinted in the darkness as a wide grin split his face.

The prince, as always, believed exactly what he had been told. He truly did think that if the dragon had the opportunity to go out there and find his heart that he would stop doing bad things. If mad Bella's stories had told him anything, it was that villains will redeem themselves if given the chance. He took the largest set of keys from his father's room and skipped back down to the cellar.

"Mr. Dragon?" he chirped at the door. "I have the keys. I'm opening the door."

The heavy keys made a clinking, rattling sound as the rusty lock opened. Quatre stood back as the dragon pushed his way through the door. The reptile stretched his long, slender neck, opened his wings and lifted himself into the air to fly away. The little prince watched and waved goodbye.

"Oh, dear God!"

The king suddenly appeared on the balcony beside his son, watching the dragon fly away. The prince tugged on his long purple robes and pointed.

"Look, Dad! The dragon's flying away!"

The king was paralysed with rage until the dragon's mighty tail lashed out and knocked down one of the castle towers. Then he picked up his son and ran into the main hall.

Three hours later, the king was consulting with his advisors over the best course of action to take regarding the dragon.

"We found these keys in the lock, your majesty," one of the guards said, holding up the huge keys, "Someone let the dragon out!"

"What?" the king blustered, as his advisors gasped in horror. "What kind of madman would release a heartless dragon?"

Quatre, who was seated at the back of the hall with his brothers, was feeling an impending sense of doom. He couldn't understand why everyone was so annoyed. So the dragon had knocked over a tower, surely it was an accident?

"Jeez, Dad's really mad," the oldest prince whispered to the second.

"Can you blame him? He had that thing locked up for ten whole years," the second son replied.

"What's going to happen now?" asked Quatre. He'd never been to a grand conference before.

"Oh, they'll find out who let the dragon out of the cellar, and then they'll cut his head off and burn his remains," replied his older brother casually.

Now, my dear, you and I know that would not be the case. Most likely if the king had found out that it was his youngest son that released the dragon he would have screamed and cursed and grounded the poor child, but forgiven him within less than a week. After all, children make mistakes and learn from them. And anyway, the oldest prince liked to scare his impressionable little brother. Quatre knew none of this, so he took the statement very seriously. He sat through the rest of the conference with his face a ghastly shade of white.

After much thought, Quatre decided to keep his part in the dragon's escape a secret. Not that he condoned lying, but he knew the value of keeping his mouth shut. There was a story from mad Bella's collection in which a princess was forced to stay utterly silent for three years, three months and three weeks to save her brothers from a lifetime spent in the form of ravens. She managed it, even when threatened with burning on the stake, and all Quatre had to do was keep certain details to himself. This is what he told himself, but the guilt and fear ate at him and turned him into a very nervous child.

Days became weeks, weeks became months, the little prince became more and more agitated as time went by. Try as he might, he could not shake the feeling that what he was doing was lying, and he abhorred lying. The search for the malevolent rogue who had let the dragon loose continued, and Quatre's brothers invented new and horrible punishments to scare their sibling with.

Finally, the strain was all too much for the prince. He wanted to confess, but he wanted to live as well. The only option open to him was to run away. He packed up a few clothes, left a short note explaining what he'd done on his pillow, and set out in the dead of night on an old cart horse.

His plan was badly thought out and poorly executed. He had no friends to stay with outside the palace; in fact he hadn't been out of the palace since his birth. The only person, of sorts, he knew on the outside was the heartless dragon. Somehow, he got it into his head that the dragon would take him in and he could keep his head. Being so naïve, he was oblivious to the myriad of dangers that he could encounter along his way. It may be the case that mad Bella's stories had an aspect of truth in them, for one would expect the prince to have been robbed, beaten, accosted and otherwise attacked if the tales of the world's highways and byways are to be believed. But virtue is a saving grace; any people that the prince encountered on his travels were downright charmed by the polite little traveller. And anyway, how much money could you expect to steal from a ten year old?

Time passed, until a year had gone by since the dragon's escape. Quatre's eleventh birthday came and went. The path he was taking was easy to trace; there were destroyed buildings and crushed trees and farmers screaming about missing sheep all the way through the country. He begged food from the local villagers and slept alongside his horse under the open sky.

Quatre was halfway through his second year on the road when he came across a terribly loud rustling in a clump of bushes. He climbed down off of his horse to investigate, and found an enormous bird tangled in the thorny branches. The bird was an eagle, and he had been stuck in that bush for a month. He was desperately starving, and most people know to stay away from a hungry wild beast. Not Quatre though. He was taught that a beast in peril needs help.

"Are you okay?" the prince asked, looking this way and that to see what the problem was.

"I'm trapped in these branches," the eagle rasped, "Help me please!"

Now, the eagle was starving and had been for quite some time, so it was no surprise that he was contemplating something rather dreadful. The prince was about the size of a healthy sheep, the eagle's favourite food, and he didn't look like he'd put up much of a fight. The eagle's stomach growled in anticipation as the prince pulled the branches away from his mighty wings.

"How did you get stuck like this?" the prince chirruped.

"A dragon flew by here; bloody sky hog knocked me to the ground."

"That's terrible. How long ago was that?"

"A month ago." The eagle readied his wings to pounce on the child. He was nearly free.

"He must not be far away then. Could you tell me where his house is?"

"What? What business do you have with a heartless dragon?"

"I was the one who set him free," the prince answered in a matter-of-fact manner, "I thought he could find his heart and become a good dragon again if he was free. My father wasn't happy about it though. They would have cut off my head if I'd stayed at home."

The eagle found himself feeling sorry for the prince, but he pushed it back. He was _really_ hungry! But still, how could one good deed be responsible for driving someone's child away from home?

"You're really caught up here," the prince gasped as he stopped to catch his breath. He reached into his clothes bundle and took out a loaf of bread and some dried meat, which he held under the eagle's beak.

"The farmer's wife gave me this, but I'm not hungry. Do you want it?"

The eagle didn't answer, just dipped his neck and gulped down the food. His dangerous designs towards the boy disappeared with his hunger, and he felt naught but gratitude. Quatre managed to tear away the last of the branches. The eagle flopped out into the dirt in a satisfying manner, before struggling to his feet and stretching out his wings.

"You're free now, and I should get going. Goodbye!" the prince called as he clambered onto his old horse.

"Where are you going?" the eagle asked, just out of curiosity.

"I'm going to the dragon's house. He might let me stay with him, if he has his heart back."

"What? The dragon's house is thousands of miles away! Can't you stay with someone else?"

"I don't know anyone outside the palace, except for the dragon. Anyway, I'm halfway there."

The eagle was oddly touched by the prince's optimism, and by his willingness to help another at the possible cost of his life. After the warm feeling that filled his chest had dissipated it was filled with a sudden chill. The prince was a beautiful child, and would become more beautiful as he grew older. He travelled alone and trusted everyone immediately. The poor boy was practically a walking target for every thief, brigand, pirate or pervert walking the roads.

"Be careful!" the eagle called somewhat weakly after the retreating prince.

"I will!" Quatre yelled back. The eagle wasn't convinced. However, life must go on, and so the eagle flew into the sky for the first time in a month.


	2. Chapter 2

**_The Heartless Dragon_**

**_Chapter Two_**

This has been a long time coming, but here it is at last. The other G-boys turn up in this fic in various disguises, but I think they're fairly easy to spot. This will be shounen-ai, eventually.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Quatre continued down the path of destruction left by the dragon for a long time, begging food from strangers and sleeping out of doors and generally living the life of a transient. Being a traveller turned out to suit him down to the ground. He was healthier than he had ever been in his life, due to the fresh air and good exercise he was getting while out and about. That didn't really occur to him though; he was trying to reach his new home. He could just as easily remained a successful hobo for the rest of his life, but old Bella's stories never included anything positive about such a lifestyle, so he pressed on.

Another year passed and Quatre's twelfth birthday passed. Adolescence was proving to be a good period for the prince; he was growing more and more beautiful as time passed. He was slowly losing all his baby fat and his body was taking on the shape of a young man, while his unusual colouring and delicate manner of conducting himself made him quite charming to behold. Unfortunately for our little prince, his trustworthy nature combined with this new attractiveness made him a prime target for lecherous brigands. Most often he would leave a town after narrowly escaping the loss of his virtue to that stranger who offered him a flagon of ale, thinking 'Gosh, he was nice!' while said man received a sound beating from the fatherly (and very large) innkeeper.

On and on our hero went on his old horse, until one day, he came across a river. Now this was a special river, for it housed a cheerful dolphin that raised his nose out of the water to greet passing travellers. At least, he used to be friendly. Being both gay and a dolphin, his dating life was practically non-existent. Most of the other dolphins he came across were female and so he had taken to eying up potential inter-species eye candy. One day, he spotted a rather handsome eagle flying over the river and had jumped out of the water to get a closer look. He promptly stranded himself in the process. Two long months had passed and people had come and gone, only getting close enough to have their portraits sketched beside the dolphin as a memento of their travels. Seething with rage and sunburn, the dolphin swore that the next person to come close would be suffocated underneath his vast body. As it happened, the next person to cross his path was our prince.

"Good morning!" called Quatre from the back of his horse. The dolphin shouted expletives back and waved his tail. When he had finished, the prince tried to recover from the shock.

"My goodness, those were some dreadful words! Is something wrong?"

"Of course something's bloody wrong! I'm bloody beached!" the dolphin roared. "Are you stupid or what?"

"Well, yes. I'm very stupid," said the prince chirpily.

"Oh," muttered the dolphin. He wasn't expecting that! "Well, yeah. I'm beached."

"That's a shame. I'll help you!"

That was another thing the grumpy dolphin wasn't expecting; help from a human. He was even starting to have second thoughts about suffocating the poor child. But he was a stubborn creature, and he'd already boasted to the birds his intentions for the next human that crossed his path. They'd never let him live it down. As the prince huffed and puffed with the dolphin's massive weight, he asked about the dragon, little knowing that his death was imminent.

"Do you know where the Heartless Dragon lives?" he asked breathlessly.

"The dragon? Yeah, I know 'im. Grumpy fcker. Lives about two thousand miles away from here. Why?"

"I need to find him. He might let me stay with him."

"Stay with him? What kind of idiot are you, boy?"

"I'm not sure. I'd have to ask my mother about that. She always calls me stupid, but she never explains what kind of stupidity I possess. 'Course I can't go home any more, so that's out of the question…"

And that's how the dolphin learned of the prince's sad situation. All thoughts of suffocation disappeared from his mind. He sniffled.

"Are you okay?" asked the prince, a little out of breath from talking for so long.

"Yeah, yeah," said the dolphin shakily, "Just got something in my eye."

Then, with a loud splash, the dolphin found himself back in the water. The exhausted prince flopped down into the dust, wiping sweat from his brow. After a moment's rest, he went back to his horse and bid a cheery farewell to the dolphin. Now, the dolphin was really worried. Being gay and not blind, he had noticed how attractive the human was, and his (supposed) stupidity made him very vulnerable. He called after the prince.

"Why don't you just stay here?" he called. "I'll give you a good home, if you need one. I've always wanted a pet!"

"Sorry!" called the prince. "I can't swim!"

"Fine! Just be careful, for God's sake!"

"I will!"

Somehow, the dolphin wasn't convinced. Even so, he put his fears behind him as he soothed his sunburn in the coolest parts of the river.

Yet another year passed and Quatre turned thirteen. His life as a twelve-year-old had been nothing if not eventful; he'd been kidnapped six times, sold into slavery three times, was liberated from sketchy situations twenty-three and a half times, was proposed to seventeen times, was propositioned one hundred and thirty two times and still he managed to remain blissfully ignorant. He usually walked out of every event feeling somewhat bemused but never knowing fully what kind of danger he'd been in. Ah, the sweetness of naiveté.

Two days after Quatre turned thirteen, the inevitable happened. His horse died. It had been an old horse, and rather senile too. By the time it finally joined the choir invisible, it had taken both of them off course by thirty miles. Quatre, knowing very little about death, sat by the horse's corpse wondering what to do when a strange beast approached him.

Now, when most people see a lion, they tend to scream and/or run away. Especially a lion that is about ten times bigger than lions should be. Especially when said oversized lion has giant teeth that protrude from its jaw and curve towards its neck. Quatre didn't know he should have been terrified, so he smiled and said hello. The lion blinked. There were many reactions he was prepared for, such as screaming, running, fainting, pathetic attempts at defence, playing dead, soiling oneself etc. He wasn't prepared for a friendly greeting.

"Good afternoon!" chirped the prince when the lion didn't say anything.

"Uh, hi," the lion muttered back, hoping his fangs were clean. He hadn't noticed before, since the smell of the dead horse had been dragging him along witlessly, but the prince was absolutely gorgeous. Yes, that's right, a gay lion. His stomach grumbled to drag him back to the task at hand.

"Look, kid," he began, "I'm starving. I haven't eaten in almost six months."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I don't have any food," said the prince.

"Well, that's not really true," began the lion. He had to be careful with what he was implying; he didn't want this pretty little thing to start crying.

"What do you mean?" asked the prince, tilting his head to one side.

_"Howaboutyouletmeeatyourhorse!" _Quick and brutal. The lion prepared himself for the tears that were surely coming. He was surprised when none came.

"Hm. I don't think so," said the prince. "I don't think he'd like that much."

"There's not that much to like," said the lion, "He's dead."

"Dead?" The prince turned to look at the hulking body of the horse. "No, he's just resting. He's very tired."

"I'm telling you kid, he's dead. I can smell it a mile away. Dead as a doornail."

"But we've been walking all day. He's taking a break."

"He's dead! Pushing up the daisies! He's met his maker, popped his clogs, passed away, he's an ex-horse!"

Quatre took another look at the horse, and screamed.

"Paolo!" he cried as his face turned a ghastly shade of white. The lion felt like such a bastard.

"So, can I eat him?" he asked. He felt bad, but he also felt hungry.

"Do you have to?" implored the prince. "Even if he is dead, it's not a good way to go."

"He doesn't care! He's dead!"

"Even so. Eaten by a lion, the final insult."

"You'll have to leave him eventually, and then the flies with get him. At least I can promise I'll be clean."

At last, the prince agreed. The lion had his feast, though he felt like a real tool for upsetting Quatre. When he had finished, he offered to take the prince to wherever he needed to go to make up for the loss of the horse. Quatre told him that he needed to a thousand miles to the north, and the oversized lion made short work of the distance. Along the way he asked about the prince's reasons for travelling so far without an escort (half a dozen large bodyguards would have been more useful, considering). The prince's sorry tale came pouring out once again.

"You're going to live with the dragon?" the lion growled. "That's insane! What if he eats you?"

"I hadn't thought about that," said the prince honestly. "I suppose I'll just have to risk it. It's probably not as painful as having my head cut off anyway."

"No way. I'm taking you home right now."

"You can't! I like my head where it is!"

"Surely there's some other way around this!"

As the boy and the beast argued, they got closer and closer to the dragon's house, which happened to be a large barn/cottage. The lion ground to a halt, and the prince slid off of his back. The lion tried one last time to persuade the prince to reconsider his crazy plan.

"You can live with me in the mountains," he offered. "I'll feed you and keep you warm. You'll want for nothing."

"Thanks, but I have to do this. This is my punishment. I have to take it like a man." The prince punctuated this sentence with a raised fist in the air, but it didn't look at all convincing. He patted the lion on the head and bid him farewell.

"I'll be looking out for you in the bushes," shouted the lion after him. "If he even looks at you funny, I'll whisk you away pronto!"

Quatre trotted up to the massive door and knocked as hard as he could. Almost instantly a huge serpentine head launched out of the upper portion of the door and looked around. The dragon saw nothing.

"What?" he bellowed. "Who's there? Bloody kids! This is 'cos I ate your parents isn't it?"

"Down here," called a little voice. The dragon looked down, and the prince waved happily at him.

"Oh shit," growled the dragon.


	3. Chapter 3

The Heartless Dragon

Sorry it's been so long since I last updated. I just bought the Dvd of Gundam Wing so I'm back in the saddle, so to speak! Usual warnings, I don't own nuttin'.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

"What the hell do you want, twerp?" growled the dragon.

"I've come to live with you!" chirruped the prince.

"What?"

The dragon wore a confused look that didn't sit well on his elegant face. His lips were pulled back over his teeth and his eyebrows were furrowed. The lion hiding in the bushes got a little nervous. From where he was standing, it looked like the dragon was about to snap the poor boy's head off.

"I got in big trouble for letting you go, so I ran away and now I'm going to live with you!" Quatre explained, as though it were really that simple.

"Think again, kid! Thanks for letting me go and all, but I'm not that grateful. Now go on home and stop bothering me." The dragon lowered his head and pushed the prince off his doorstep with his massive nose.

"But I can't go home!" wailed the prince. "They'll cut off my head and put it on a stick, and I like it where it is!"

"Don't be an idiot; no parent would do that to his kid. Unless…" the dragon trailed off. The king had kept him locked up for ten years after all. Who was to say he wouldn't have the idiot boy's head cut off?

Now, it is commonly thought that guilt is an affliction of the heart, and since the dragon had no heart he wouldn't have felt any guilt. But it is actually a condition of the head, a little twinge that a person feels when they _know _they've messed someone around. It didn't help that Quatre was being so nice about it all. The dragon felt a headache coming on.

"Look kid, don't you have someone else you can go to? A nanny, and uncle, a sugar daddy?" the dragon growled.

"Nope. You're the only person I know who doesn't live in the castle. Paolo came too, but he died and got eaten by a lion."

There was that guilt again. The dragon gritted his teeth, closed his eyes and bit the bullet.

"Fine. Get inside the house. I was thinking of getting a pet anyway."

…..

The deal was Quatre could stay in the house as long as he could make himself useful. That meant chores and lots of 'em. The dragon figured that the pampered palace brat wouldn't be able to so much as lift a broom, let alone handle the oversized furniture that needed cleaning in the huge house. He'd go crawling back to that horrible king in no time. As it turns out, the dragon was wrong.

Quatre took to domesticity, even of the overly large-scale persuasion, like the proverbial duck to water. He devised a system of pulleys for drying the dragon's laundry. He did the dishes with one of the dragon's old toothbrushes. He dusted the surfaces with a series of branches tied together with a cloth on top. And he did it all so quietly and cheerfully that the dragon barely knew he was there.

Therein lay the problem, as the dragon saw it. He'd gotten rather fond of Quatre and liked having him around, but the kid was so quiet he never heard him leave the house. Whenever he realised that Quatre was in fact out of his sight and therefore out of his protection his mind filled will all sorts of terrible scenarios. After all, the kid was so unbelievably stupid he'd do anything anyone told him. He would be ready to charge out the door to rescue the prince from all the brigands out to get him, when Quatre would come through the door with an armful of firewood, completely unharmed. Cue much yelling and threats of grounding or being locked in the cellar by the enraged dragon.

The lion was still hanging around, keeping an eye on the prince just for safety's sake. He wasn't too worried about Quatre anymore; the dragon was more than protective enough. But there was no harm in being careful, right? He lived in a cave near the cottage, well within earshot of anything going on in the house. And one night, he heard the beginnings of an interesting conversation.

"Get in the cellar! No, go to your room! Aw, just get dinner started!" the dragon yelled at the prince, who was dangling from the reptile's giant claws.

The lion rolled his eyes. This kind of thing happened most days. The dragon would find out Quatre had wandered off somewhere, find him, carry him back to the house, yell at him for about half an hour, ground him, then change his mind and get him to start dinner. Every other day. Occasionally, the dragon would sneak out after dark to hunt down and eat whatever ruffian had been trying to lure away his pet.

Quatre made dinner, and sat at the end of the huge table eating peacefully. The dragon was massaging his aching head with his fore-claw. Despite the fact that the wasp's nest in place of his heart had stopped being so painful since the kid had moved in, he was now more susceptible to migraines and had even discovered a few grey scales on top of his head.

"Where is your heart?" piped up the prince. The dragon looked up, confused.

"What?"

"Your heart. Where is it?"

"I don't have one. Now shut up and eat your food."

"That's ridiculous. St. Peter said all creatures have hearts, and he's not allowed lie. He's a saint, after all."

"What? I knew you were stupid, but this really takes the cake! If I say I don't have a heart, I don't have a heart!"

"But that makes no sense!"

"Jesus Christ! You believed that bearded freak when he said the bridge was closed and you had to go through his house but you won't believe me when I say I have no heart?"

"All creatures have hearts. Bella told me so!"

"Fine, fine, just shut the hell up. It's in the cupboard."

Quatre turned around to look at the plain oak wood cupboard. It was old and dusty (he wasn't able to reach it with his duster). It was just an ordinary cupboard.

"It's in there?"

"Yes," growled the dragon. "And if you go near it, I'll eat you."

They continued to eat in silence. But as soon as the dragon left the house to go pervert hunting the next day, Quatre climbed onto the cupboard with a bowl of varnish and a cloth. The lion watched through the window, bemused.

The dragon returned shortly to find Quatre balancing precariously on the ledge of the cupboard, polishing the wooden surface.

"What the hell are you doing? " roared the lizard, startling the little prince so much he almost tumbled off the edge.

"I'm polishing the cupboard," the prince chirped back, and then resumed his work.

"Why? And how did you get up there?"

"If your heart's in here, it should look nice, don't you think? Or at least clean," said Quatre, unmindful of the incredulous stare directed at the back of his head.

"You actually believed me. Why am I even surprised?" bellowed the dragon.

"Oh, so it's not in here?"

Even the lion outside the window groaned. Of course the heart wasn't in the cupboard. Who would keep their heart in a cupboard?

"Of course it's not in the bloody cupboard! Who would keep their heart in a bloody cupboard?" growled the dragon as he lifted Quatre off of the ledge and set him safely on the ground. He felt another grey scale coming.

"Oh, I see. You were lying to me."

Quatre said it in such a cheery way that the dragon felt really, really bad.

"Yeah, well," he muttered. "Serves you right for being dumb enough to believe me."

"All right! In future I'll remember you're a liar and I won't believe anything you say."

"Gah! Fine! I won't lie again, okay? Just…go to bed!"

Quatre skipped off to bed as the dragon soothed his frazzled nerves with whiskey. But the next day the subject of the missing heart came up again.

"If it's not in the cupboard, where is it?"

"Under the step. Shut up," mumbled the dragon, thoroughly engrossed in picking food out of his teeth. Quatre was scratching his back with a broom.

Later that day, as the dragon was napping, Quatre went out to the step with a bucket of paint. The lion watched him from the hedges as the prince splattered more paint on himself than the step, making him look like the victim of a serious stabbing incident. The dragon woke up, wandered outside to relieve himself, and saw what he thought was his horribly murdered pet. He screamed like a pre-pubescent girl.

"What's wrong?" asked Quatre, wiping the paint off of his hands.

"What the hell happened to you?" screamed the dragon.

"I painted the step!" the boy yelled happily. The dragon was torn between wanting to hit him and wanting to hug him.

"Why?" he eventually mumbled.

"If your heart is under here, it should be painted properly. It was only half-done before."

"My heart's not under the step," muttered the dragon, feeling the fury grow.

"Oh. Did you lie again?"

"YES! You got me, okay? I'm a dirty filthy liar! _You happy now_?" the dragon screamed.

"Not really," said the prince. "I spent a long time painting for nothing."

"You wanna know where my heart is? Huh!"

The dragon suddenly picked Quatre up and pointed him towards the sky. The lion in the hedge tensed, wondering what the enraged dragon would do next.

"Over those mountains is a church," he hissed. "In the church is a well, in the well is a duck, in the duck is an egg and in the egg is my heart!"

Then the dragon dropped the prince roughly on his tush.

"Go paint that if you can!" he growled, and stalked back into the house.

Quatre stood up, rubbing his behind and looking into the distance with an odd expression on his face. Then he followed the dragon into the house, where he was ordered to have a bath and go to bed.

But an hour later, the lion was shaken awake by the prince. The two of them left for the mountains under the moonlight.

…..


End file.
